The Philadelphia Flyers are going to the PLAYOFFS, but, there is still one game left to play. As the Montreal Canadiens come to town, the Flyers will be icing roughly half of a real lineup (projected) but the visitors actually have something to play for.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- The Flyers announced that they called up a bunch of players before tonight’s game, and it means a couple of NHL debuts are happening. [BSH]
- Young players were in the spotlight during the Flyers’ playoff push. [BSH]
- Flyers react to their dramatic win to clinch a playoff berth for the first time since 2020: “I was emotional” [BSH]
- We got some awards! The Flyers announced the winners of the year-end team awards to recognize the top seasons on the team. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 42-27-12 (3rd in Metro)
Goals: Owen Tippett (28)
Assists: Trevor Zegras/Travis Konecny (41)
Points: Travis Konecny (68)
Montreal Canadiens – 52-22-6 (3rd in Atlantic)
Goals: Cole Caufield (51)
Assists: Nick Suzuki (72)
Points: Nick Suzuki (101)
Projected lineups
Philadelphia Flyers*
Denver Barkey — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Alex Bump — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Carl Grundstrom — Jacob Gaucher — Porter Martone
Garrett Wilson — Luke Glendening — Anthony Richard
Nick Seeler — Travis Sanheim
Cam York — David Jiricek
Hunter McDonald — Oliver Bonk
Sam Ersson
(Aleksei Kolosov)
*We don’t know for sure — we’re totally guessing just based on what players were called up and who could use some rest.
Montreal Canadiens
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alexandre Texier — Alex Newhook — Ivan Demidov
Oliver Kapanen — Zack Bolduc — Kirby Dach
Jake Evans — Philip Danault — Josh Anderson
Mike Matheson — Kaiden Guhle
Jayden Struble — Lane Hutson
David Reinbacher — Arber Xhekaj
Jakub Dobes
(Jacob Fowler)
Storylines to watch
Bonk, McDonald make NHL debuts
While some would have assumed that this might be the least interesting Flyers game of the season, as they ice just half of a lineup and don’t really have anything to play for at all — not even standings positioning after making the playoffs or anything — there is at least some crumbs of intrigue.
Oliver Bonk is going to be making his NHL debut, which is plenty exciting as he is seen as one of the Flyers’ top prospects and this clearly shows that the front office really wants to see how he handles a hungry Montreal squad and if he can be ready to maybe make the leap to play full-time next season. Oh, and Hunter McDonald is also making his debut.
The David Jiricek of it all
While it’s not as exciting as an NHL debut, David Jiricek is projected to make his Flyers debut after being acquired by Philadelphia at the trade deadline. The offensive-but-somewhat-flawed defenseman has been putting the work in with the development staff down in Lehigh Valley but still is a player who might score three points on a power play while also finishing the game as a minus-2 and not moving very well on the ice.
It will be interesting, at the very least. But hey, if he suddenly looks dominant as a power-play quarterback and makes Rick Tocchet drool the second he’s able to actually unleash a laser from the point — like no one else on the Flyers blue line can — he might just get in some playoff minutes. The scenario of the Flyers being down a couple games in the series and putting Jiricek in the lineup to give some offensive juice as a little bit of a gamble, isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
We’ll see tonight, I guess.
The Canadiens are actually playing for something
This could’ve been a fun game featuring an NHL lineup filled with AHL talent for both teams, but unfortunately the Canadiens have to come to Philadelphia and actually try to win this hockey game.
Montreal is locked in to a series against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round, but since they are tied with 106 points each in the second and third spot in the Atlantic, home ice is still up for grabs. The Canadiens will lose the tiebreaker against the Lightning — they currently have 34 wins to Tampa’s 40 — but they need the two points tonight to even have a chance for home-ice advantage.
The only thing is that the Lightning’s final game is against the New York Rangers of all teams, so it might be a little bit of lofty thinking that Tampa could lose that game.
Still, there might be an annoying level of try-hardness against a Flyers lineup who is going to be missing a whole lot of key pieces. We also just have to remember that if we see a 6-1 loss after 60 minutes.
